Hot Cocoa + Dragons + Magnolia's

This past Saturday started like so many others: sleeping in and laying around 'til noon or so. We look forward to those mornings all week. However, if someone where to tell me how this particular Saturday would end, I would have never believed them.

Ever since the Youngbergs and us went on our Hot Chocolate Crawl, I have been craving The City Bakery's hot chocolate. But this desire intensified even more when Maribeth told me about the bakery's specialty hot chocolate month, where they feature different hot chocolates everyday for the month of February. This Saturday's featured hot chocolate? Carmel. I had to have it.

It was misting rain all day on Saturday. Perfect for hot chocolate drinking. We arrived at The City Bakery wet and thirsty—ready to sit, sip and enjoy.

The first sip was just what I had anticipated—thoroughly and utterly delightful. However, if you have ever had this hot chocolate before you know it's not like any other hot chocolate. It has a syrup like consistency and is VERY rich. It did not take too many more sips for both of us to be completely full and in need of some water and a salty pretzel croissant to off set the sweetness. During our hot chocolate crawl I finished a whole cup; however, this time I could barely finish half. Needless to say, we left The City Bakery with a lot of precious hot chocolate virtually untouched.

Later, Nate and Ashley Smith invited us to go to Chinese New Years Party at the Lincoln Center. This sounded like a lot of fun to me, considering I always wanted to go to the Chinese New Year parades in San Francisco when I was a kid. I looked forward to it all day. However, when the time came for us to meet them, Pat informed me that it was a CHURCH Chinese New Years Party...NOT a NYC Chinese New Years Party. HA! This changed everything. The exciting event I had been envisioning quickly shattered; however, with the promise of good friends and their companionship, we went (Yes, that is how much we love the Smiths).

However, when we arrived the attendance of the event was staggering. Authentic homemade chinese food was being served with the background music of a chinese string instrument heard and seen in both China and the NYC subways system. The great thing about this was that the gentleman playing this instrument was in fact the same man who plays in the subway system. A member of the church asked him if he would play for our Chinese New Years party and he accepted. He was such a cute man. I am definitely tipping him next time I see him.

The evening was full of Chinese musical numbers and dances. I especially loved this group of "older" ladies dancing. The whole night I kept telling Pat "I think I was supposed to be Asian." I just love everything Asian, and I think I enjoyed the whole evening a little too much.

However, the highlight of the evening was the "Lion Dance." This is where a dragon danced around the room to the beat of Chinese rhythmic drums. I love the way these human motioned dagons move. They become so life like and bring out the kid in everyone that sees it. I have never seen one in person, so I was especially excited.

As if a Chinese New Years Party was not enough "firsts" for one particular Saturday, afterward we headed over to Magnolia Bakery. It's hard to believe after living in NYC for a little over a year (including the summer Pat was interning here) we have never been this this popular bakery. They are known for the cupcakes (which I have heard mixed reviews about) and their banana pudding (which I sadly could not have because of my recently discovery of my-oh-so-odd allergy).

I really liked the bakery, not only for its food but for its comfortable and relaxing atmosphere. We stayed there talking with the smiths for a good hour and half and had a blast talking about everything from Palm Readers to Egypt. I would say this was another great Saturday filled with good friends, good food and dragons.